Been gone FAR too long.

I apologize to all my avid readers (HA!) for being gone so long. I have a glut of material to speak on and will try and catch up.

First a few general happy pieces of news. First off, congrats to Paul Rudy on winning the American Rome Prize. He'll be spending the next year hanging out in Italy. Coincidently, i will not be spending the next year studying with him, which makes me quite sad.

Also, had a successful performance in NYC with my latest piece "It Was Raining" with the fabulous vocalist Sarah E. Fox. We also performed (as a duet, somewhat, heh.) Aphorisms of Futurism by Andrew Seager Cole. It was a fabulous concert and i really hope that Sarah and I can take those couple pieces around a bit.

Now for the sad news: The monitor on my laptop is not happy. At all. Apple wants to charge me something like $1300 to replace the whole thing. I'm not actually 100% positive it needs replace. The way it's acting reminds me of just having a bad connection. I'm going to tear it apart with a friend of mine and see if we can fix it. If not, i found a place that will replace the monitor for $300 plus shipping. Screw you Apple!

That being said, i'm going to do a couple quick posts, mainly just to separate them. The first will be in regards to my recent teaching. I haven't been blogging about it like i should. I have fun adventures but i have been a little...pre-occupied. Still am in some ways.

Now then, with "It Was Raining" finished (for now. It needs MASSIVE revision and programming, but it's gonna sit for awhile.) i have a film score for an animated short. It's about a village of flying hamsters that keep getting attacked by a troll. There is only dialogue during the first 20 seconds or so, and from then on, it's all score. There is also going to be no foley. we decided to do everything in the score. It'll be a fun challenge, especially since i'm doing it 100% electronically.

After that, i'm going to work on a Pierrot ensemble piece. I actually dislike Pierrot ensemble greatly. I think it is mid heavy. I'm definitely going to add some metallophones to the mix to give a little brightness to the mix, as well as specifying a soprano for the vocal part. I'm actually thinking of writing it using "micro-poetry." It's quite the fad at the moment, with published twitters and such. I'm going to talk to some folks i know that do "that writing thing" and see about ways to get tons of submissions. i think it would be a lot of fun to do a contest for it, with the winners getting put into my piece (which is being entered in a competition). It would be a fun form of collaboration, i think.

blah

I've been feeling a bit down this week. It happens. I go through cycles just like everyone else. My current diet/level of physical activity has definitely helped me from any deep plunges lately. Plus, a nice string of good luck. Whoever out there that is trying to make my life a bit better, thank you greatly.

The biggest problem i have when i hit these funks is writing music. Basically, i'll stare at a page, unable to come up with anything. I'll run through some motions (write a line, do its transpositions, inversions, some rotational aspects, etc) and still nothing. So, i'll pop on some "tv on the internet" (hulu, or some illegal sites) and watch that for awhile. come back and try the writing thing again. then i'll throw on some music, make some sort of elaborate feeding session, try a new recipe, something like that. When i'm finished cooking and ready to eat, i'll watch another episode of whatever show i was watching before, or maybe toss on a movie. Last night, that movie was Blues Brothers. awesome. still, nothing.


Yesterday, i also tossed in driving to the mall and checking out shoe stores and trying to find a radio shack. shoes for my feet and a single stage power conditioner, outlet box, and any cable/clamps i might need to make a home-made power conditioner. Unfortunately, i failed on both accounts. Shoe shopping always sucks cause no one seems to have what i want. Vans, skater shoes, relatively plain (no skulls, no crazy colours). Colour is negotiable however, i prefer black on black (partly for professional reasons).

Anyway, i hopped on here this morning thinking i would do a nice long article on "The Death of Hearing" based upon 1)headphone listening levels, 2)accurate broadcast of music through any medium (headphones, speakers, radio. all these things change the sound. not to mention things like mic choice, mixing ability, etc). 3) the over compensation of mixers attempting to make a product that sounds alright over these mediums 4) the availability of media destroying live acoustic performances (even those coloured by PA systems), and 5) the lame attacks by the record industry to stave off sharing of music, and continuing to view the most important product created as the CD (or the iTunes mp4a up for sale.) 6) the degradation of media quality for file size-- a simple trade-off but one that people don't always realize is a bad thing, in some ways.

But, i don't feel like fleshing it out. I was actually going to flesh it out with proper citations from credible sources and send it off for a conference...however, i just don't feel like it now. Heh. yep, its the funk. I think washing my sheets would help. I'll do that today. I had meant to early in the week but got distracted. clean sheets is a joyous thing.

On that note, i'm going to shower, walk to a coffee shop with compy, maybe do some work there. Not sure i'd really need compy for this mission, but i love him so. lol. anyway, catch y'all later

oh yeah, bought my plane tickets to NYC for Electronic Music New York's International Electro-Acoustic Music Festival. I'm on the "emerging composers" concert on Aprils 13th, Levenson Recital Hall, 7pm. lol. Hopefully i can get moved up with the big boys soon. not that i'm really as good as they are, it'd just look better on the CV. lol